Information Graphics, Photos and Images

Slugfest: Inside the Epic, 50-year Battle between Marvel and DC

admin • 1 year ago

The most bruising battle in the superhero world isn’t between spandex-clad characters; it’s between the publishers themselves. For more than 50 years, Marvel and DC have been locked in an epic war, tirelessly trading punches and trying to do to each other what Batman regularly does to the Joker’s face. Slugfest, the first book to tell the history of this epic rivalry into a single, juicy narrative, is the story of the greatest corporate rivalry never told. It is also an alternate history of the superhero, told through the lens of these two publishers.

Slugfest will combine primary-source reporting with in-depth research to create a more fun Barbarians at the Gate for the comic book industry. Complete with interviews with the major names in the industry, Slugfest reveals the arsenal of schemes the two companies have employed in their attempts to outmaneuver the competition, whether it be stealing ideas, poaching employees, planting spies, ripping off characters or launching price wars. Sometimes the feud has been vicious, at other times, more cordial. But it has never completely disappeared, and it simmers on a low boil to this day.

The competition has spilled over to the even the casual fans, bisecting the world into two opposing tribes. You are either a Marvel or a DC fan, and allegiance is hardly a trivial matter. Perhaps the most telling question one can ask of a superhero fan is, Marvel or DC? The answer often reveals something deeper about personality, and the reason is wrapped up in the history of both companies.

SuperSuit: a Business History of a Non-Linear Business At a party recently, two fellas got into a heated tangle over Marvel vs. DC. Marvel, one insisted, has grown too snooty living atop the comics sales heap for decades. The other insisted DC was stuck in World War II and hadnât had a good idea since Eisenhower without pirating it from Marvel. As somebody with no corner to back, I found the conflict confusing. But watching two guys kept my focus narrow.Freelance journalist and sometime radio sidekick Reed Tucker takes a wider view…

As an avid ’80s comic book reader, this book brought it all back Reed Tucker does a great job of tracing the evolution of comic books and the superhero industry by focusing on the historic rivalry between the two majors — DC and Marvel. Tucker provides more than enough info and anecdotes to keep things interesting, but he never gets bogged down in so much esoterica that neophytes will get bored. (I do think this book will be appreciated most by moderate to avid fans, though; some advance knowledge of the primary personalities involved will help in terms of…

If I say to you “Spiderman #252 was very hard to find, Dreadstar was Jim Starlin’s crowning achievement, and Omega Men was a superviolent X-Men knockoff” and that sentence meant something to you and wasn’t total gibberish then you will love this book. If the sentence was gibberish, but you’re a general comic book fan, you’ll probably still like it. If you think I’m a silly nerdlinger, then you probably won’t enjoy it.Basically, if you’re of an age where you did your comic…